Dear friends of ancient mythology! The starting point for this article was the following coin. 1st coin: Roman Republic, M. Plaetorius Cestianus, gens Plaetoria AR - Denarius, 18.52mm, 3.86g, 60°. Rome, 67 BC Obv.: Draped bust of a winged goddess, r., with helmet decorated with plume, lotus blossom and ears of grain on forehead, bow and quiver over right shoulder, cornucopiae under chin. behind CESTIANVS, in front S.C Rev.: in ex. M PLAE, then TORIVS F AED CVR Eagle with spread wings standing on bundle of lightning .r., head turned l. Ref.: :Crawford 409/1; Sydenham 809; BMCRR 3596; Plaetoria 4 VF+ Pedigree: ex M&M AG Auction 38, Basel 6/7.12.1968, coll. Dr. August Voirol, lot 181 Notes: (1) Plaetorius Cestianus was a friend of Cicero ("Pro Cluentio"). He was a Curulian Aedile and has struck as Mint Master for the final battle against Mithridates. (2) Dr. August Voirol (1884-1967) was a gynaecologist in Basel. In 1933 he discovered numismatics by chance through some coins of the Adlerbank. He met Herbert Cahn and assembled a small but select collection of ancient coins. From 1942-1954 he was vice-president of the Swiss Numismatic Society. The goddess depicted on the obv. is regularly but incorrectly called Vacuna. Vacuna is a Sabine goddess and identical with the Roman Victoria. She had an ancient sanctuary (Vacunae nemis) near Hadrian's villa at Tibur, today's Tivoli. The Romans, however, derived her name from Vacuus and thought that she was a deity to whom the country people offered sacrifices when the harvest in the fields was over and the fields were empty (Schol. ad Horat. Epist. I.10.49; Ovid Fast.VI.307; Plin. H.N. III.17). Her festival, the Vacunalia, took place in December. From Horace's Scholiast we also hear that some identified her with Diana, Ceres, Venus, Minerva, Bellonan and Victoria. However, these scholarly interpretations were not yet fully available at the time of the Mint Master, so that this view is untenable (Roscher). Today her name is etymologically derived from *vacu- (= lacus, with alternation of l>v, like Umbrian 'vaper' = lat. lapis) and she is determined as 'dea del lago'. Their Sabine cult centre was probably at the sulphurous springs Aquae Cutiliae (Evans) near present-day Rieti. A village called Bacugno in the region there still points to the worship of Vacuna. The traditional identification of the female bust on the obv.. of this coin as Vacuna is impossible, writes Crawford, citing the work of J.P.Morel, MEFR 1962, pp.25-29. An identification as Isis, according to the work of A.Alföldi, S 1954, pp.30/31, may be correct. But she carries not only the lotus-flower of Isis but also (1) the helmet of Minerva adorned with a plume of feathers, (2) on her forehead the ears of grain of Ceres, (3) over the right shoulder the bow and quiver of Diana, (4) under the chin a cornucopiae and is (5) winged like Victoria! In summary we have to state that the identification of the obv, type is still uncertain. She is a real "multi-culti" goddess! The Pantheion The Pantheion (Lat. Pantheon) was the totality of the gods, just as the Panellenion was the totality of the Greeks. In a polytheistic religion, people were used to invoking the deity responsible for them or their concerns each time. It was not always easy to choose the right deity. Sometimes the oracle had to be consulted first. At large festivals, several gods were in charge, and sacrifices had to be made to them. In order not to incur the wrath of the forgotten gods, the other gods or even "all the gods" were also invoked. This custom already appears in Homer, where oaths were supposed to be given the strongest confirmation. This was especially true when there was a hurry and there was not enough time to find out which deity was responsible. In such cases, pantes theoi (= all gods) were used, e.g. for oath formulas. In the 4th century, these calls became more frequent, but there was no cult of the gods as a whole. According to Herodotus, when the Ionians, Dorians and Aiolians founded Naukratis in the Nile delta, they built a common sanctuary for all the gods they had brought with them (Pauly), but only as a defence against the foreign cults surrounding them. This changed in Hellenistic times, when there is an increase in inscriptions referring to consecrations, festivals, priesthoods and cults, especially in Asia Minor, where the formula theoi pantes kai pasai (= all gods and goddesses) also accumulates. The famous Pergamon altar was probably also dedicated to the community of gods, as indicated by the fact that its four sides depict the entire family of gods. Antiochos IV Epiphanes organised a great triumphal procession in Antiocheia, in which the images of "all the gods named among men" were carried along. After the Pantheon in Rome, the most important was the one that Antiochos of Pergamon had erected on the summit of Mount Tauros, which was dedicated to all the gods, including himself and his family (Pauly). Such a Pantheion is also known from Ilion, Pergamon, Erythrai, Antiocheia ad Maiandrum and Alexandria. A significant influence on the increasing spread of these cults had been Alexander's campaign to the Orient, through which the Greeks became acquainted with a large number of new gods and foreign cults. Their own traditional views became weaker and they were no longer convinced that they were the sole helpers in emergency situations. Worshipping many deities at once made people feel safer. It is said that there were even altars dedicated to the agnostoi theoi (= the unknown gods) in order not to neglect any god. According to Acts 17:13, there was such an inscription on an altar in Athens, to which Paul linked his Areopagus speech. But a monotheistic tendency was already emerging, that all gods were only the expression of a single higher being. There was probably no goddess named Panthea (Roscher). But more and more often different deities were syncretistically linked with each other, as we know from coins, e.g. Zeus/Ammon, Dea Mater, Aequitas/Nemesis, Tyche/Demeter etc. Caligula had his beloved sister Drusilla consecrated as Diva Drusilla Panthea! Pantheus is found among the Romans as an epithet of many gods. As the name suggests, Pantheus represented a deity who united the various divine powers and personalities within himself. Inscriptions from the 1st and 2nd century A.D. prove that the ideas that led to the worship of a god Pantheus were already present among the Romans relatively early (Roscher). Serapis was also regarded as a universal god. In Carthage there are inscriptions as Serapis Pantheos. The next coin shows him as Serapis Pantheos: 2nd coin Egypt, Alexandria, Antoninus Pius, AD 138-161 AE 33mm, 26.42g, 33.4mm, 0° struck 141/42 (year 5) Obv.: ΑVΤ Κ Τ ΑΙΛ ΑΔΡ ΑΝΤΩΝΙΝΟϹ EVϹEΒ Laureate head r. Rev.: Bust, of Serapis Pantheos, draped, wearing kalathos and radiate crown, ram's horn over ear, before him trident around which serpent coils. In field L - E Ref.: Dattari-Savio Pl. 148, 2867 (this coin; RPC IV.4, 15340.6 (this coin) Shanna Schmidt Numismatics, Vcoins, April 2022. Pedigree: Naville Numismatics 53, 3 Nov 2019, lot 303. ex Dattari coll. The Pantheon in Rome: The grandest and most perfectly preserved ancient building in Rome is undoubtedly the Pantheon on the Field of Mars. It was long believed to have been built by Agrippa in 25 BC in honour of his friend Augustus. This is also written as a monumental inscription on the epistyle of the vestibule: M. Agrippa L. f. consul tertium fecit. This is also attested by Pliny and Cassius Dio. The round building contained the statues of many gods and the huge dome resembles heaven. The Pantheon was destroyed several times by lightning and fire and rebuilt each time, so in 89 by Domitian and then by Hadrian, but also in 202 by Septimius Severus and then by Caracalla. In 608, it was converted into the church beatae semperque virginis Mariae et omnium martyrum by Pope Boniface IV under the reign of Emperor Phocas. In the process, of course, all the images of the gods were removed. In the meantime, archaeological facts have proven that the circular building we see today was not erected by Agrippa, but by Emperor Hadrian. It has been shown that almost exclusively bricks from the Hadrianic period were used in the construction of all structurally important parts. The inscription that names Agrippa as the builder goes back to the fact that Hadrian had a traditional aversion to his name being mentioned on his buildings, and the reason for this almost "quirky reverence" (Pauly) was his endeavour to avoid anything that would have made him appear similar to the hated Domitian. The latter had passed off the buildings he had only restored as his own original creations. Sources: (1) Homer, Iliad (2) Herodotus, Histories (3) Pliny, Naturalis historia (4) Cassius Dio, Roman History (5) New Testament (6) Ovid, Fastes Literature: (1) Crawford (2) The Little Pauly (3) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Detailed Dictionary of Greek and Roman Mythology (also online) (4) Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (online) (5) Benjamin Hederich, Thorough Mythological Dictionary (also online) (6) Elizabeth C. Evans, The Cults of the Sabine Territory, 1939. Best regards Jochen
One of my favorite Republican denarius types. M. Plaetorius M.f. Cestianus Ar. denarius, CESTIANVS, behind winged bust of goddess, wearing crested helmet r., quiver and bow on shoulder, cornucopiae below chin, SC before, rev., M PLAETORIVS M F AED CVR (fragmented), eagle on thunderbolt with hd. l. (Seaby, Plaetoria, 4). 3.99 g Ex. CJ Martin on Vcoins
M. PLAETORIUS M.F. CESTIANUS ROMAN REPUBLIC; GENS PLAETORIA AR Denarius OBVERSE: Bust of an Vacuna right, wearing a wreathed and crested helmet, bow and quiver on shoulder, cornucopiae below chin REVERSE: M PLAETORIVS M F AED CVR Eagle right, on thunderbolt, head left Rome 67 BC 3.7g, 18 mm Cr409/1; Syd 809; Plaetoria 4 M. PLAETORIUS M.F. CESTIANUS ROMAN REPUBLIC; GENS PLAETORIA AR Denarius OBVERSE: Head of Bonus Eventus right; horse's leg behind. Argentarii mark in obverse REVERSE: M. PLAETORI CEST. EX. S. C, winged caduceus Rome 57 BC 3.87g, 19 mm Cr405/5; Syd 807; Plaetoria 5
I've only been to Rome once and that was over 30 years ago. Seeing and walking into the Pantheon is still the high light of that trip. An absolutely amazing building. It gave me chills when I realized that people had been walking through the doors for over 2000 years.
The Pantheon in Rome is truly an impressive building. As an engineer, I can say that its use of concrete for the dome was groundbreaking. When I was working in Egypt to construct port facilities and a grain import silo at the Red Sea port of Safaga, the ancient Roman quarries at Mons Claudianus were ca. 40 km away. Those immense columns in the Pantheon's portico came from this quarry in the Red Sea Mountains of Egypt. The columns were quarried and then conveyed across the desert over 100 km to the Nile River, eventually to be floated down the Nile, and then by ship across the Mediterranean Sea to Italy. Just the quarrying and transportation were an engineering feat.
Here is my example of that type and one of the few denarii I have. The toning on this piece is very nice in hand and there is a significant amount of mint luster remaining that doesn't show in the image.
